An odd Q2 for tablets and PCs

Jon Peddie Research's latest Market Watch adds even more ironic humour to the media's continuing proclamations of the impending doom of the PC industry. This quarter saw tablet sales decline while overall PCs were up and that was without any major releases to drive purchasers to adopt new technology. While JPR does touch on the overall industry this report is focused on the sale of GPUs and APUs and happens to contain some great news for AMD. They saw their overall share of the market increase by 11% from last quarter and by just over a percent of the entire market. Intel saw a small rise in share though it does still hold the majority of the market as PCs with no discrete GPU are more likely to contain Intel's chips than AMDs. That leaves NVIDIA who are still banking solely on discrete GPUs and saw over an 8% decline from last quarter and a decline of almost two percent in the total market. Check out the other graphs in JPR's overview right here.

"The big drop in graphics shipments in Q1 has been partially offset by a small rise this quarter. Shipments were up 3.2% quarter-to-quarter, and down 4.5% compared to the same quarter last year."

"That leaves NVIDIA who are still banking solely on discrete GPUs and saw over an 8% decline from last quarter and a decline of almost two percent in the total market"

The Tegra K1 is a SOC with Nvidia graphics, so Nvidia is not relying solely on discrete GPUs, unless you mean for just Nvidia's discrete GPUs in the PC market, But Nvidia's high pricing will lose sales in the discrete PC GPU market, and who knows the profits, as these figures only state the unit numbers, and not the revenues/profits. Give Nivida a few quarters and they should improve greatly on the SOC side of the equation, and the discrete PC market does not include the HPC based GPU products, as well as Nvidia's GPUs being used as accelerators with IBM power8 processors, on a very fast, high bandwidth mezzanine module.

Nvidia has an awful lot going for it in the HPC/supercomputer market, and the K1 is the first custom ARMv8 ISA mobile SOC that supports the full desktop versions of the OpenGL/CL/other graphics drivers. Does the PC market include the Netbook, and chromebook units also?, as the K1 is getting design wins on these form factors, as well as the not Included saturated Tablet market. Nvidia is in a prime position to take a large share of the non Apple tablet market, with the K1, and mostly because of the K1's graphics. The PC market was never dead, it was just a saturated market, and tablets have just begun to show that the tablet new and shiny factor has now worn off, and consumers will be looking for the best value/performance in tablets, like they have been with their purchases of PC, for the past few years.

AMD needs to get its custom ARMv8 products to market, if it wants to compete in the Chromebook/Netbook market, as well as the tablet market with Nvidia. I will not buy my first Tablet, until I can get a tablet with a full Linux distro, are you listening Nvidia, any Tablet that offers what your K1 has to offer will sell well if is comes with a full Linux distro, be it a tablet, or a chromebook style device, get full Linux and get the K1 running some Linuxbooks, and tablets and take more of the market, stay all in with Android(Toys Are US), and loose a valuable part of the saturated Tablet/Chromebook market. There is an untapped segment of the Tablet/Chromebook market that won't buy unless the devices run a full OS instead of Android. This latest rise in PC sales is nothing more than the aftereffect of the demise of XP, and the natural replacement/amortization business cycles syncing, the PC market is a mature market, that Tablet market is just beginning to mature, and consumers will expect more than Android as the only option on non windows tablets, and more than Chrome OS on their Netbooks. The custom ARMv8 market already has better than Intel's graphics choices, now give the K1, and its similar devices a full function non windows, full Linux OS distro, and watch the sales increase. Intel still has control of some of the "SOC" market, but Intel's share of the Chromebook/netbook market is not listed, and it is not as large of a lead, if it is a lead at all, compared to what Intel has in the laptop/PC market.

The big question with these PC statistics is just how they include the ChromeBook, Netbook, and similar form factors, are they included with the PC/laptop unit numbers, or are they not. I would like to see the overall market share listed by form factor, with PCs, Laptops, Netbooks/chromebooks, tablets, and Phones, with the SOCs/graphics listed under these separate categories, As oftentimes they are bunched together to obfuscate the real market share, or to make one company appear to be doing well in a new market, when actually it is just the opposite. Intel is the odd one out of the three, as Intel does not have any discrete products, while Nvidia and AMD do, and just how much of that Intel total PC/laptop/? share, includes PCs/others that also come with discrete AMD, or Nvidia, GPUs, and just get the Intel graphics as part of the CPU, unable to be purchased separately, package?

"Our findings include discrete and integrated graphics (CPU and chipset) for Desktops, Notebooks (and Netbooks), and PC-based commercial (i.e., POS) and industrial/scientific and embedded. This report does not include the x86 game consoles, handhelds (i.e., mobile phones), x86 Servers or ARM-based Tablets (i.e. iPad and Android-based Tablets),or ARM-based Servers. It does include x86-based tablets, Chromebooks, and embedded systems."

I read that as not including Tegra; if you want the breakdown you described you will need to pay JPR the $2500 fee for the full report.

I doubt they will include the number of Intel CPUs, in laptops epically, that were purchased for their discrete GPUs, and the Intel graphics is just there with the CPU. My latest laptop has an AMD discrete GPU, and was purchased because the Intel GPU could not handle the 3d mesh models in editing mode, I can easily edit 1.5 million polygon mesh models with the AMD graphics, and the Intel GPU is just there, as I do not Know if there is software that can use both GPUs at once, but the AMD GPU allows me at least work with high polygon meshes. I purchased the device for the AMD graphics, and the Intel CPU, but not the Intel Graphics for any heavy lifting. So it will always be, yes Intel's "SOC" graphics just go along for the ride, on many gaming, and other PC systems, and it would be nice if the OS could take advantage of all the available resources on a computing platform, but M$ seams more interested in changing the OS's UI, and not making its OS more HSA aware (and I do not mean just AMD's version of HSA, it could be any HSA) . $2500 is a bit too S/A of a price to pay for the info, looks like this info is too limited, and JPR is in the marketing business, so that source is questionable. The Custom ARMv8 SOC Tegra K1, and AMD's future ARMv8 APUs will make it hard for Intel in the Netbook/Chromebook market, as both Nvidia and AMD will have better graphics. The Apple A8 is just about to arrive, and for sure Apple could introduce a pro version of its tablets that can run a full OSX. Right now M$, and Intel are the only ones with a tablet that runs a full OS, but those tablets are more expensive, and the Intel graphcs in the tablet SKUs are just too under powered, Nvidia's K1 for the price has the best graphics of any Tablet SKU, but no full OS, a full OS that can run Gimp, and other graphics programs.

I'm starting to think the whole tablet thing is a bit of a fad. Not quite good enough to replace a laptop, less convenient than a large phone. I see oem's learning a lot from tablets about what people want and putting it to use in phone and laptop design, i.e. thinner lighter touch enabled laptops and easy to use media consumption on phones. Just my observation

thinner lighter, not really, Thinner and lighter only means for laptops, overpriced and underpowered, The tablet market is crowded like the PC market is, and Android is just not there for creating, same goes for RT. M$ needs some competition in the full OS based tablet market, and Nvidia, and AMD should be producing the custom ARMv8 SOC that will make for some low cost/powerful GPU based tablet SKUs over the next few years, with Nvidia's Denver, Apple A8, and AMD's future custom wide order ARMv8 ISA SOCs taking the market from the core i3's and their anemic GPUs. the K1's benchmarks are pretty impressive, and wait until they start arriving on smaller process nodes, and in improved variants(4 Denver Cores for a laptop/netbook SKU, and more GPU resources).

What you are saying true, HOWEVER i was talking about the average consumer, not us. The average consumer wants pretty toys. They know nothing about internals or what they actually need, all they know is pretty things are pretty. Time and time again I hear "I miss my old phone that I would only have to charge every 3 days, I want my phone to keep a charge, I don't care about all this other stuff," and time and time again when they get a new phone it's a big, thin, crazy screen with less than a day battery. We want powerful useful long lasting. They want macbook air for 1/3 the price. We buy enthusiast parts that are low margin for the company, or budget enthusiast parts to build systems cheaper than you could ever find in a big box store, we are not where the money comes from. They push the market, they spend the money, they waste their money, and they are starting to realize, I think anyways, that a tablet is and always will be a toy or a compromise. Just a shift is all.

There is no US, for the average consumer the Wow factor of tablets has worn off, the tablet market honeymoon is over, and the Android(Toy Apps) type of OS is NOT as good for productivity. The Surface products are overpriced solutions, that the average consumer will not buy, the Nvidia tegra K1, if that CEO can get over his love affair with Android Only, can become a full Linux OS based breakout Hit, in the chromebook/netbook form factor market, and the productivity Tablet market, running a full Linux based OS distro. This Android only for Tablets, is a good part of the reason the Tablet market has lost its luster, same goes for Apple and its lack of a Pro Tablet that can run the Full OSX. The Main reason that M$ can and does, charge so much for its surface pro, is that it has no full OS based competition in the full OS based Tablet market, and the K1(running full Linux), and a pro version of the ipad(running OSX), is what is needed in the tablet market, the K1 Denver variant, has so much potential to be much more, and it only takes one OEM shipping a Tablet SKU that runs a full Linux Distro, and the K1 to get the process going. Hopefully the Debian folks will get their hands on both K1 variants, and get the base Debian distro running on the K1 based tablets, that should help get the ball rolling.

No, most certainly NOT, we do not agree, and you spout some of the most simplistic tautologies, and specious retorts!
Tablets based on the K1 Denver, and Apple Cyclone variants
are more than capable, should they be running a full Linux distro, or Full OSX in Apple's case, of making a tablet a productivity device by itself, without the need of any cloud based services providing the extra processing power. The Custom microarchitecture ARMv8 ISA based devices are a level above the standard ARM holdings reference designs, and will, with a full and proper OS, provide the same general functionality and productivity as a standard low end full function laptop/netbook.

No dude, dont get me wrong, I totally understand what you are saying, and it's all true. I'm just wondering what you foresee as the use case for these devices. I love the K1, and I would love to see it in a full linux system. I just think it would be more useful in a larger laptop with a nice keyboard, or even a desktop box. I would love it if NVIDIA could turn arm and linux into a serious alternative to x86 and M$.
It's just from where I'm standing it seems like a 7 inch or even a 10 inch tablet isn't a great form factor for any serious computing. I love my little tablet for watching videos, time killer games and all that, but when I want to do anything like, for example commenting on this sight, a proper keyboard is great.

but ultimately what would be the point of a tablet with a full linux distro? You could get any "hybrid" out there, format, and install any linux you want. But what would be the point? without a proper sized keyboard and a nice mouse or some kinda mouse replacement, without proper productivity apps, without directx, what would be the point exactly? A tablet at this point in history is simply a scaled down pc, massively scaled down. Not good enough, not powerful enough, just not enough to compare to a system with the power in the base and the screen as a separate entity. It just seems like a fad, it's not the processor, it's not the architecture, and it's not the OS, at this point it's just not a worthwhile form factor.

The Tegra K1 SOC is plenty powerful enough to run graphics programs on a tablet device, and its graphics are more capable than Intel's, and cost much less for a Tablet based SOC! Do you realize that Linux is running on the controllers on most hard disk dives, and SSDs, and other controllers for laptops, PCs, and other devices. An overpriced Windows OS/bloatware infested Tablet, running an overpriced SOC, with underpowered graphics, is not going to be able to compete in Price/Performance with a K1 based tablet, running a low overhead Linux distro, and say Gimp open source graphics software, or Blender for light mesh modeling and light rendering, although the K1's Kepler cores could probably do some cycles rendering, much faster than a CPU render on my laptop's quad core i7! A low cost K1 SOC based tablet with good screen resolution, and Full Linux's ability to run Gimp, and Blender(even if for only mesh modeling, and the compositor for single image manipulation workflows), for a graphics tablet, the K1 with its full desktop driver support(OpenGL, etc.), get the ability to run just Gimp, and Blender, and I am there ready to tell the retailer to, shut up and take my money! Both Gimp and Blender would run fine as long as the tablets memory was around 4GB(for Blender at least), and even Libraoffice has OpenCL support to run spreadsheet calculations on the GPU, so those 192 GPU cores can also crunch the productivity numbers. The K1 custom ARMv8 ISA Denver variant, will be able to execute 6, maybe 7 IPCs, that's over twice as wide as the ARM holdings' reference designs at around 3 IPCs, for the ARM reference cores. The K1 Denver is a custom wider order design that should be fine running a full Linux OS, even the 4 core K1, running a 32 bit SOC has the power to run full Linux, and desktop applications. The mobile graphics and games run just fine on OpenGL, and OpenCL, and on the 192 K1 GPU cores, users can crunch some spreadsheets calculations one hell of a lot faster, than on Intel's SOC based GPUs that use Intel's GPUs/graphics. The Apple Cyclone(A8), and Nvidia Denver K1 based devices will already out benchmark ATOM, and the ATOM is fabricated on a smaller process node, just wait until the custom wide order superscalar ARMV8 SOCs start arriving on the 20nm process node! AMD has yet to introduce its Custom ARMv8 ISA based APU, but I'd imagine that its GPU will have an equivalent number of GPU cores, than the K1, and the CPU will be of a wider order superscalar design also(6 IPCs, at least). Windows and its bloat, and DirectX, is not needed in the mobile market, and both AMD, and Nvidia are working with Khronos to make OpenGL, work closer to the metal with each new release of this standard graphics API.

Seriously I wana know what you plan to do with a 10" tablet with a full OS. Are you planning to game on it? Top end titles on a small screen? Work? Create documents or write code on a touch screen keyboard? Take notes in class when even a pen and paper would be faster? AutoCad? Photoshop? Spreadsheet? In every one of those cases more screen is better is better, plus a keyboard/mouse or high def stylis is needed. Why would you need that kinda power on a small screen? And if the answer is "You can plug all that shit in externally," why not have a full system in the first place? If it's all about mobility than why compromise and shove it all into the screen limiting battery, cooling, storage, interface, connectivity and end user mod/repair? Don't tell me about the tech, we all know the tech. What is the application?